


Day Job

by Limen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Horror, Sci-Fi, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 05:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16340588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limen/pseuds/Limen
Summary: Loosely inspired by Viscera Cleanup Detail and Space Quest. Why else would someone agree to tidy up interstellar hulks filled with God-knows-what?





	Day Job

A dim, red 4:47 AM lit the room when the phone rang for Peter. It was Gabe, of course it was Gabe, of course it’s going to be another job. Nobody else was left who would call him anymore. Parents? Dead. _The Manifest Destiny, dark side of Mercury, grey goo incident, hackjob to aerosolize thermite from the food synth. Rule 1 of the job, never salvage anything, even if the chocolates are shrink-wrapped and be a great last minute Christmas present._

George? In detox from Monday’s job. _The Olympus, Titan, malevolent psionic influence from artifact, jettisoned into Jupiter’s gravity well._

Lindsay? She went off of another soul-searching trip after the last breakup. _The Primordial, Alpha Centauri, hyper-adaptive synthetic parasite, explosion of fuel canister to stun and ejection into deep space. Broke rule 1, the bastard’s offspring managed to learn to emulate inorganic objects, nicked Lindsay with a brooch, had to watch her left eye crawl out of the socket and metamorph into a chitinous, spidery mass before throwing it into a mason jar and the freezer. It’s still there, too, spinning threads of ice from condensed water vapor. Probably should report, but union fines would basically be a month’s salary at the end of it._

An arm shot out from the stained blanket for the nightstand, knocking over one bottle of Blind Ivan’s Cost-Efficient Vodka (Now With Handle), a second, empty, bottle of Ivan’s, and the phone itself. The jolt was the pre-programmed command for answering, so the incoming call was routed into the sound system of the apartment, a 360-degree wall of condescension and authoritarianism with additional bass so you could feel your teeth rattle while being berated without actually having to do the work of fearing the voice on the line.

-It’s Gabe. We’ve got an early arrival in Bay 4 of RWR.

-Good mornin’ to you, too. I guess you didn’t switch to decaf after all.

-Not the time. Four-hundred man research vessel, five floors, twelve hundred square feet each, plus maintenance.

-Why the hell aren’t you calling Jerry? He’s next in the rotation.

-I did. The tech who picked up said he’s relapsing. Acidic bile on two EMTs before they got him under control.

_(The Odyssey, some terraform candidate near the Horseshoe Nebula, xenomorphs, initially hostile, territorial, religious zealots, propensity for genetic modification via airborne pathogen. Peace treaty. Think they ship rare earth metals for hyperconductors. Gotta wear masks around them from what the news says, both to hide your face and to not breathe in anything coming off of them. Jerry’s the reason we know about the last part.)_

-Fuck. And Sandie’s on maternity leave.

-I’ve got a taxi coming your way. At least you’re getting hazard pay for this one.

-What the hell am I doing today?

The speakers faded off with an electric whine, replaced by a cacophony of hydraulics, interlocked metal, and electromagnets began to disengage, letting Peter’ apartment drift slowly out of its block and onto the waiting platform, efficiently carting the hazardous cargo to the loading bay for inventory and loading.

It never failed to amaze Peter how resilient, courageous, and insane humanity was as a species. For all the resources and research and beauty of space, no less than one in ten ships returned infested, infected, a vector for some new mutagenic disease, replaced by antimatter alternates that explode upon entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, or worse. Tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars were thrown away to try to map the electromagnetic pulses of a dying star, tugging asteroids into lasting orbits to mine them for ancient alloys fused millennia before mankind built their repeated Towers of Babel. To watch, helplessly, as a Dyson sphere slowly collapsed on itself due to the sheer weight and strain, as friends, colleagues, family, trapped in their tombs of steel and chrome and silicon, slowly pulled into the inferno, because some forever anonymous soul, mad because of space-sickness or a spurned advance or the consuming ennui of space gazing, cut a few key rivets with a plasma torch a month before the system goes online.

Peter often didn’t think about these things because he chased oblivion to forget these very facts. As an extraorbital hygiene technician, he was often forced to confront the aftermath of humanity’s failures. A modern day untouchable, For the Safety of Terrestrial Humanity, as the posters proudly proclaimed in the eternal break-room of Peter’ cell. Quarantined, inventoried, evaluated, and medicated. Routinely humiliated with MRIs and brain scans and psychiatric evaluations, limited to social interaction with Approved Psychological Resources. Encouraged to self-destruct through substance abuse because alcohol and peyote were the best known defenses against psionic manipulation. He really couldn’t shake the feeling that he, of all creatures, was truly alone in the universe.


End file.
